Personal Independence Payment - PIP Assessment - Make food or cook

One of the daily living activities is preparing food. Add the points you score for this activity with the points you score for other daily living activities to find out if you may be entitled to the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

When you are looking at how many points you score for making food or cooking, think about what help you need to do it:

• Safely

• Fast enough

• Well enough

• Often enough

You score points for the sentence that is true for most or over half of the time. If more than one sentence is true, you normally only get points for the sentence that is true for the most time. You can only score one set of points for making food or cooking, do not add them together.

No points

You can make a simple hot meal on your own without any special aids.

Examples of simple hot meals:

• Pasta and sauce made from scratch from fresh ingredients
• Cheese and tomato omelette

Example of special aids:

• Stool to sit on

Two points

You can make a simple hot meal if you use a special aid (like a stool to sit on).

You can’t make a simple hot meal using a cooker but you can if you use a microwave.

You can only make a simple meal if someone reminds you to or tells you to.

Four points

You can only make a simple meal if someone is with you to watch you or to help you.

Eight points

You can’t make a simple hot meal at all, even if you have someone helping you.

Updated: September 2021